Date: Sunday, December 6th, 2015
2-3PM
Weather: Partly cloudy
Temperature: 45°
My site has changed quite a bit from when I first saw it. In
early October, it still had a lot of vegetation and green going on. The foliage
was dense and lush, with shrubs seeming to grow on top of each other, competing
for sunlight. Over time, most the shrubs lost this fighting spirit and shed
their leaves. The shrubs that did retain their leaves became less vibrant and
vivacious. Everything seemed to shrink in the cold as if it was trying to hide.
The birds also became quieter. Not much chirping was to be heard, especially on
dark, rainy days. It’s as if during the fall, the forest gradually falls asleep
until it reaches the deep slumber of winter. Now, the forest is mostly bare.
The trees, given that they are mostly deciduous big leaf maples and red alders,
stand tall and naked. Their leaves are completely gone. If you look up, the
canopy looks like a huge wooden spider web. The only widespread vegetation that
remains are islands of sword fern, big shrubs of salmonberry, and the
invasive species, English holly and English ivy. Lichens and some other
epiphytes such as moss and licorice fern still prosper on the tree trunks,
especially on those of big leaf maples. Currently, the female holly trees are yielding
their red berries, bringing some Christmas spirit to the forest. Light
penetrates straight through the bare canopy onto the forest floor, and sounds
carry much easier through the open forest. The leaves from red alder and big
leaf maple lay decomposing into mush onto the forest floor, replenishing the
soil with nutrients.
(October 2nd, October 14th, November 17th, December 6th)
1) How
has your perception of your observation site changed through the quarter? Think
about how it has changed phenologically, and how your relationship to it has
changed accordingly.
When I first started going to my
observation site, I wasn’t very impressed. I didn’t find anything strikingly
interesting about it. The same old trees, the same old plants. I remember on my
second visit for the journal assignment, I was actually pretty annoyed that I
had chosen this spot because I couldn’t find any birds or animals or plants that
struck me as interesting. But as my knowledge expanded and the journals
required more exploration of my site, I really started to fall in love with it.
The mushroom journal was the turning point for me. This journal assignment had me
looking high and low for fungi. I was surprised to find some cool stuff since
nothing had really popped out to me before. This was when I realized that my
site was pretty dang cool—I just hadn’t been looking hard enough. It was just another
one of those things that you get out of it what you put into it. I also remember
wishing I had taken this class in the spring, thinking of all the cool flowers
and birds and behavior I could have seen then. I was a little bitter about
thinking I had taken it during the wrong quarter. Now, I’m grateful for having
taken it during the fall. All the season changes are valuable to a naturalist,
and as a beginner, I’m glad I took this class during a less busy season, as the
activity of spring might have been overwhelming. Now I have the skills to go
out in the spring and observe things for myself. It's a little sad to watch things dying off now that it's moving into winter, but it makes me that much more excited to come back in the spring!
2) How
has your sense of the Puget Sound Region changed through the quarter? Think
about the body of knowledge we have explored, and the wealth of experiences we
have had both locally and on travels around the region.
While traveling and telling people where
I was from, I’d always be a little confused when they’d say “Seattle? What a
beautiful place to live!” Especially when I’d hear this from people who live in
Hawaii, a place I deemed so much more beautiful than my home region. Now, I
understand. The Puget Sound Area is unique in its climate, fauna and
geomorphology. We are a rare area where you can see a variety of beautiful places all relatively close to each other—lakes,
beaches, forests, meadows, mountains, glaciers, and rivers. I learned a lot
about the vegetation in this area. Before, I couldn’t tell you what any of the
plants at my observation site were. Now, I can identify most of them from the
knowledge I acquired throughout the course. The same goes for birds. Before, the only bird I knew was the
chickadee, thanks to my grandmother who taught me to identify their call. Other
than that, I didn’t know much, nor did I ever really notice birds outside—their
calls were background noise and I never cared to look for them. Now, I know a little bit about the species around here and find
them really cute and fascinating. The fact that they are ancestors of dinosaurs
blows my mind. Some even look like little feathery dinosaurs! I really can’t
get over it.
3) What
does it mean to intimately know a natural place? Think about this question in
terms of the process of "doing natural history" and the outcome of
repeated experience in nature. Also think about it in terms of scale—you have
done close observation of one site, as well as developed broader appreciation
of the range of interconnected ecosystems as one travels across this
region). Is there as much to be gained (or more?) from close observation
of nature in a city park, as compared to field trips to far flung places
or inspiring view points in the mountains?
By intimately knowing a place, you are
able to notice small changes, and appreciate the development as if you’re
watching a child grow. I found that I became very fond of my observation site
as I learned more about it and saw it change over time. You are able to see a
process, instead of a result or a snapshot, which allows you to get a more
thorough understanding of one particular natural area. You really get to know
the dynamics of nature—how the seasons affect the species. Nonetheless, having
a broad understanding of other places helps to understand the differences from
region to region and gives you a general sense of the world. This general sense
is important as it allows you to make connections between a place you know
intimately and a place you know only vaguely, giving you a sense of the larger
scale relationship between regions. That being said, intimately knowing a place
facilitates your understanding of other less studied places and vice versa. I think this class had a good balance of field trips,
as the Puget Sound area, our home, is the first place we should learn about in
detail. Later, we will be able to use the keen observational skills we acquired at home and apply them to other regions.
4) What
do you feel are your most important personal outcomes from this
class? What is the value to you of nature observation, and any other skills you
have garnered?
This class has given me invaluable skills
that I plan to take with me through my life, even if I don’t plan to use them
academically. Being out in nature and feeling like I am interacting and participating
within it, instead of overlooking and exploiting it, has done a lot to make me
mindful and appreciative of the world around me. I now have the skills to go
out and understand the natural world
on my own, without needing a teacher or text book to explain it to me—I merely
use my own observational skills. This brings a real sense of independence
knowing that this wealth of knowledge is available to me right outside my door,
and I do not need any kind of curriculum to teach it to me. It’s the same
concept in the cliché “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a
man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” This class taught me how to fish,
and I plan to use these skills to educate myself during the spring this year
and onwards throughout my life. When I say this class has changed my life, I
really mean it. It really did nurture the love of nature I didn’t even know I
had. Natural history is so strangely rewarding—I try to explain why I like it so
much but I just can’t. It must be the innate predisposition we have to love
this sort of thing that really makes a person take to it so much.
5) Has your overall perception
of nature and natural history, and the place of humans in nature, changed this quarter?
Most the time, humans separate themselves from nature, not understanding
that they are nature. We usually don’t
see ourselves as part of an eco-system, we simply see nature as something put
there for us to use to our advantage. I was like this before too. Caught up in
the hustle and bustle of human affairs, I would never even really notice nature
and just take it for granted. There wasn’t much interaction with nature beyond
the occasional appreciation of aesthetic beauty. I’d say, “that’s some nice
scenery,” like it was some kind of painting, but never really saw at is
something I could interact with. I feel the human/nature distinction a lot less
now that I see nature as interactive and more than just a nice view. Having just a
little bit of knowledge in the field has allowed me to see nature as a
fascinating process I can be there to witness and understand. It makes a game out
of being outdoors: what’s this plant? What’s that bird? I’m able to observe the
dynamics of the natural world around me, something us city dwellers with
fast-paced lives get to do so little. While we're so used to spending our time in the human-centered world that humans have created for themselves, we can’t forget the natural world
where it all started. Nature brings you back to your roots by drawing you from
the clutches of civilization and allowing you time to ponder things you may not give thought to otherwise. It’s really no wonder why poets and artists look to nature for
inspiration!
